Original Bayonetta Voice Actor Asks Fans to Boycott Bayonetta 3

In a recent series of tweets this past weekend, voice actress Hellena Taylor urged gamers to not pick up the latest entry in the Bayonetta series over what she calls an ‘insulting’ payment offer. In three short videos posted to Twitter, Taylor explained that she was offered the sum of $4,000 to voice the titular character for the entire game. Considering the franchise has (so far) made $450 million over just two entries. With the much anticipated third, this approximation is likely to shoot up even more.

“I am asking the fans to boycott this game, and instead spend the money that you would have spent on this game, donating it to charity”

While not illegal, Taylor herself has deemed the offer ‘immoral’ considering the work and effort that goes into voice acting. This is especially true for a titular character in a decently big franchise. Many fans were quick to support this stance, agreeing that the amount she was offered was insultingly low for such an iconic voice. Twitter users @felipefesantana and @Lucazz82 had the following to say:

While voice acting jobs are not quite as lucrative as many believe them (especially considering that one talent could go months without finding any work), $4,000 for this character seems very low. On top of this, the replacement for Taylor has left quite a few people scratching their heads. Jennifer Hale was snatched up after the disagreement between PlatinumGames and Taylor. Hale is best known for her work as Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series, amongst supporting voices in Overwatch and even the well-beloved Knack II (for one or two people anyway). This makes Hale quite a significant buy- and one that is probably costing PlatinumGames far more than $4,000. Of course, we don’t know this for sure, but it seems like there may have been some other motivation other than cost-cutting behind this move.

While there was a lot of support for Hellena Taylor in the wake of her tweets, there was also quite a lot of backlash. By boycotting the game entirely, the rest of the work performed by every other employee is completely wasted. I highly doubt everybody involved in this project was responsible for the $4,000 offer, and ignoring all of their work because of one voice actor being wronged doesn’t seem like the answer. This is especially true considering that this revelation came less than two weeks before Bayonetta 3’s release date of October 28th. Furthermore, a lot of Twitter users were less neutral, and more aggressive against Taylor for her stance on the matter. User @BorgaHasbro echoed a lot of community sentiment:

Overall, opinions seem quite split in response to this news. With some supporting Taylor due to the low offer, she was provided with, and others slamming her for asking fans to boycott a game she wasn’t even involved in. To take a more balanced view, I do believe it is true that boycotting this project is not the path to take- especially considering the thousands of hours so many different developers have put into it. On the other hand, the offer to Taylor was egregiously low- especially for a renowned character. It remains to be seen whether anything comes of this requested boycott, but hopefully, this does open up a wider discussion about voice talent in the gaming industry without harming a product that so many PlatinumGames employees have poured so much time and effort into.